.
Type of Work .All's
Well That Ends Well is stage play in the
form of a romance comedy. It is also classified as
one of three of Shakespeare's "problem plays"
(along with Measure for Measure and Troilus
and Cressida) because it presents as
heroes or heroines characters
who are seriously flawed. Bertram, one of
the main characters, is a problem because he
consistently mistreats Helena, the woman who loves
him; he regards her as unworthy of him because of
her inferior social status. Helena is also a
problem because, though intelligent and appealing,
she resorts to trickery to win Bertram. Only at
the end of the play does Bertram accept Helena,
but his sincerity remains a question.
Consequently, because the heroes are less than
heroic and because the ending of the play is
abrupt and somewhat forced, many critics regard All's
Well as one of Shakespeare's weaker
comedies. These critics may be entirely right in
their assessment. However, one may fairly
speculate that Shakespeare intended the play as a
satire on social conventions of the day, pointing
out the problems that arise from snobbery and
hauteur, as personified in Bertram. In this
context, the play becomes far more palatable and
the character development and plot artifices more
artistically acceptable.

Composition and Publication.

Date
Written: Between 1603 and 1605. First
Printing: 1623 as part of the First Folio, the first
authorized collection of Shakespeare's plays.

Source

Shakespeare
based All's Well That Ends Well on a story
in The Decameron, by Boccaccio
(1313-1375). The Decameron, written
between 1349 and 1353, consists of one hundred
tales told by seven men and three women to pass
the time after they isolate themselves in a villa
to escape the plague. The subjects of the tales
include romance, deceit, and the power of the
human will. All's Well That Ends Well
is based on the ninth story told of the fourth day
of isolation.

Authorship

Oxford
University professors Emma Smith and Laurie
Maguire, authors of Thirty Great Myths About Shakespeare,
maintain that he might have co-written All's
Well That Ends Well with Thomas Middleton
(1580-1627), author of The Revenger's Tragedy and The Changeling.
However, they acknowledge that their research
leads to a speculative conclusion, not proof.

Significance of
the Title.The title is based on lines
spoken by Helena to point out that the success or
failure of an event or a course of action depends
entirely on how it ends:

But with the word the time
will bring on summer,When briers shall have leaves
as well as thorns,And be as sweet as sharp. We
must away;Our wagon is prepared, and time
revives us:All's well that ends well;
still the fine's the crown;Whate'er the course, the end is
the renown. (4.4.37-42)

Settings.The
action begins inRoussillon, a region in
southern France, then moves to other locales,
including Paris, France; Florence, Italy; and
Marseilles, France. Bertram, one of the central
characters in the play, is the Count of
Roussillon.

Characters.Protagonist: HelenaAntagonist: Class System
That Discriminates Against Persons of Low Birth

Bertram: Self-Centered
and immature Count of Roussillon, who rejects the
woman who loves him because of her inferior social
status.Countess of Roussillon:
Kindly and level-headed mother of Bertram.Helena: Gentlewoman
protected by the Countess; she is in love with
Bertram even though he believes she is not good
enough for him. When he leaves his home in
Roussillon to make his mark in Paris at the court
of the King of France, she later follows him in
hopes of winning his love. Bertram's mother, the
countess, abets her in her plan. King of France He suffers
from a chronic ailment which Helena, schooled in
the healing arts, has the power to cure. Duke of FlorenceAntonio: Oldest son of the
duke.Parolles: Follower of
Bertram. Parolles is a bad influence on the young
man and is, in part, responsible for Bertram's
less than gentlemanly behavior.Lafeu: An old lord who
warns Bertram that Parolles is a coward.Lavache (Clown): Servant
of the Countess of Roussillon.Steward: Servant of the
Countess of Roussillion.Old Widow of FlorenceDiana: Daughter of the
Widow. Diana cooperates with Helena in a scheme to
trick Bertram into pledging his love for
Helena. Violenta, Mariana:
Neighbors and friends of the Widow.Citizens of FlorenceA PageFirst French Lord: He
carries out a plot that reveals Parolles as a
coward.Six Soldiers: They assist
the first French lord.Second French LordAstringer: Man who acts as
a messenger for Helena.Minor Characters: Lords,
Officers, Soldiers, Gentlemen

The
Countess of Rousillon has taken in an appealing
young woman named Helena after the death of her
father, Gerard de Narbon, a highly respected
physician. While in the household, Helena falls in
love with the countess’s son, Bertram, but keeps
her feelings to herself. Bertram pays her no heed
and does not hesitate to go off to serve in the
court of the King of France, a friend of Bertram’s
late father. Accompanying Bertram is his friend,
Parolles, a braggart who is a corrupting influence
on Bertram throughout the play. The king suffers from what is
believed to be an incurable fistula. When he greets
Bertram and his friends, he says,

I would I had that
corporal soundness now, As when thy father and myself in
friendship First tried our soldiership!
(1.2.34-36)

The king says he would submit
himself to treatment under Gerard de Narbon, who
also attended Bertram’s father, if the great
physician were still alive. All other physicians
have done him no good, and the king thinks death is
near.

While Bertram is in Paris, Helena
pines for him even though he may be out of reach
because of his high social station. Under prodding
from the countess, Helena admits the cause of her
melancholy: her separation from Bertram. Then Helena
reveals a plan to go to Paris to heal the king with
a potion left behind by her father. While in Paris,
she will have an opportunity to be with Bertram. The
countess, pleased that Helena loves her son,
encourages her in her plan. After Helena arrives in
Paris, an old lord of the court, Lafeu—who had accompanied
Bertram and Parolles to Paris—tells
the king of her wondrous healing powers. Lafeu says
that

I have seen a medicine That’s able to breathe life into
a stone, Quicken a rock, and make you
dance canary1With spritely fire and motion;
whose simple touch, Is powerful to araise King Pepin,2
nay, To give great Charlemain3
a pen in ’s [in his] hand, And write to her a love-line.
(2.1.67-73)

But the king at first refuses
to let her treat him because he has had his fill of
failed cures. She then stakes her life on the
efficacy of her medicine, but stipulates a
condition: If her treatment works, the king will
allow her to select a husband from among the
eligible bachelors at court. The king agrees. Within
days, his illness disappears, and the king presents
five worthy gentlemen for her to choose from. Helena
rejects all of them and selects Bertram as her
husband-to-be. However, Bertram complains that she
is the daughter of a mere physician and, thus,
unworthy of him. He says that he cannot and will not
love her. Helena, heartbroken, is willing to let the
matter end there. The king is not. After elevating
Helena to a higher social rank, he commands Bertram
to marry her, telling him,

My honour’s at the
stake; which to defeat, I must produce my power. Here,
take her hand, Proud scornful boy, unworthy this
good gift. (2.3.136-138)

Bertram yields, and the
wedding ceremony takes place that evening. In the
meantime, Lafeu and Parolles discuss the events of
the evening. When Lafeu criticizes Bertram for his
ungentlemanly conduct, Parolles threatens the old
man but backs down, revealing himself as a coward,
after Lafeu threatens him in return.
After the wedding, headstrong Bertram refuses to
stay with Helena even for a single night, preferring
instead to hie off to join other young French lords
in a military campaign in Florence, Italy. Parolles
praises his decision, saying it is better to seek
glory in war than wallow in the hellhole of France.
As Bertram prepares for his military venture, Lafeu
warns him that Parolles is cowardly and
untrustworthy, but Bertram is heedless. Before
leaving, Bertram orders Helena to return home to
Rousillon with a letter for his mother. In the
letter, Bertram infuriates his mother by writing, “I
have sent you a daughter-in-law: she hath recovered
the king and undone me. I have wedded her, not
bedded her; and sworn to make the NOT eternal.”
Helena then receives a letter of her own from
Bertram. It says, "When thou canst get the ring upon
my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a
child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then
call me husband: but in such a ‘then’ I write a
‘never’ " (3.2.37).
Deeply hurt, Helena leaves Rousillon and goes on a
pilgrimage to Saint Jaques monastery in Spain.
However, her feet do not cooperate and, instead,
lead her to Florence, where Bertram is encamped with
troops. Helena stays at a lodging house for pilgrims
run by an elderly widow. The widow’s daughter,
Diana, tells Helena that a certain Count Rousillon
(Bertram) has distinguished himself in battle. “Know
you such a one?” (3.5.31) she asks. Helena says she
has heard of him, but does not know him personally.
Helena also learns that Bertram has been trying to
seduce Diana. In public, Diana points out the Count
Rousillon to Helena.
Later Helena tells her whole sad story to the widow,
revealing herself as the rejected wife of the young
count. Then she enlists Diana’s help in a plot to
win back her husband. Diana agrees to help her. Here
is the stratagem. Diana will agree to a midnight
tryst with Bertram if he will give her his ring; in
effect, Diana will be trading her chastity for the
ring. When Bertram agrees to all the conditions,
Diana says,

And on your finger
in the night I’ll put Another ring, that what in time
proceeds May token to the future our past
deeds. (4.2.73-75)

After Diana obtains the ring,
all goes well. At the appointed hour, Helena takes
Diana’s place in a darkened room, going
unrecognized, and she and Bertram make love. During
the night she places on his finger a ring given to
her by the King of France. Meanwhile, Parolles has
been exposed as a simpering coward by French lords
who ambushed and captured him, then make him think
he was in the custody of the enemy. Parolles, whose
name means words in French, tells his
“captors” everything they want to know in order to
save his skin.
Elsewhere, Bertram’s mother, who has been led to
believe that Helena has died, sends a letter to
Bertram announcing Helena’s death and asking her son
to return home. After he arrives, he begins to
realize what a good and loving woman Helena was.
When the king visits Rousillon, Bertram claims that
he loved Helena.
The king forgives him for rejecting her. But life
must go on, and the king thinks Bertram should now
marry Lafeu’s daughter. However, before he makes the
match, the king notices the ring on Bertram’s finger—the very ring he gave
Helena, the ring that Helena placed on Bertram’s
finger in the dark room after first removing
Bertram’s own ring. While Bertram lamely tries to
explain how he obtained the king’s ring, Diana shows
up, saying it was she who placed the ring on
Bertram’s finger while in bed with him. Then she
demands that Bertram marry her. (Diana is really
acting on Helena’s behalf. Helena must first prove
that a midnight meeting took place before she can
disclose that it was she, not Diana, who met with
Bertram.) Next, the widow arrives with Helena.
Helena announces that not only does she have
Bertram’s own ring, but she also carries his child.
Thus, she has met both of the conditions Bertram set
forth in his letter to her. The whole truth of what
happened in Florence then unravels, and Bertram
accepts his wife. The king says in the play’s
epilogue, “All is well ended” (5.3.354).

.Climax.The climax
of a play or another literary work, such as a
short story or a novel, can be defined as (1) the
turning point at which the conflict begins to
resolve itself for better or worse, or as (2) the
final and most exciting event in a series of
events. The climax of All's Well That Ends
Well occurs, according to the first
definition, when Helena, through trickery, takes
Bertram's ring while he is asleep. (Bertram had
vowed never to return to Helena unless she
obtained the ring on his finger, a task he thought
impossible.) At this point, the plot begins to
resolve itself. According to the second
definition, the climax occurs in the final act
when Helena shows Bertram the ring and he vows to
love her forever..

Themes.A human
being should be judged on his or her inner
qualities, not on social standing. Bertram
rejects Helena (until the end of the play) because
she is below him on the social scale. Blinded by
his prejudices, he fails to see her good
qualities. This theme foreshadows the themes of
later English writers, such as Jane Austen, Emily
Brontë and Charles Dickens.Women have
the intelligence and know-how to compete with
men. Examples: (1) Only Helena can cure the
king's fistula. (2) Helena and Diana team up to
trick Bertram.The
motif of women struggling to prove their worth—or
suffering under male domination—is a recurring
theme in literature. For example, in the fifth
century BC, Sophocles dealt with this theme in Antigone,
a play in which a teenage girl challenges the
authority of a king. In the nineteenth century AD,
Kate Chopin dealt with this theme in several of
her works, including a splendid short story
entitled "The Story of an Hour," in which an
oppressed woman fails to assert herself in a male
world but does enjoy an hour of freedom.All things
are not as they seem. Bertram thinks high
standing brings happiness. In reality, he
discovers later, only love, honesty, and other
virtues can bring happiness. All is well when it ends well.
Helena gets her man even though she had to pretend
to be another woman, in a darkened room, to trick
him into accepting her. At the end of the play,
Helena says that success or failure of a course of
action depends on how it turned out, not on how it
came about. Friendship. The old widow
and her daughter, Diana, help Helena win back
Bertram. In the process, the two Florentines become
loyal friends of Helena, and she becomes a good and
appreciative friend of theirs. The widow and Helena
express their friendship in the fourth scene of
scene of Act 4:

WIDOW: Gentle
madam,You never had a servant to whose
trustYour business was more welcome.HELENA: Nor you, mistress,Ever a friend whose thoughts more
truly labourTo recompense your love: doubt
not but heavenHath brought me up to be your
daughter's dower,As it hath fated her to be my
motiveAnd helper to a husband. (lines
17-25)..

Imagery: Light

All's Well That Ends Well
exhibits a maturity of style equal, in some
instances, to that displayed in Shakespeare’s
greatest plays. Some of the most beautiful imagery
in the play is expressed by Helena. In the
following metaphor, she compares Bertram to a
bright star too high for her to reach. The light
imagery is reminiscent of that in Romeo and
Juliet, written ten years before.

It were all one That I should love a bright
particular star And think to wed it, he is so
above me: In his bright radiance and
collateral light Must I be comforted, not in his
sphere.The ambition in my love thus
plagues itself: The hind that would be mated by
the lion Must die for love. ‘Twas pretty,
though plague, To see him every hour; to sit and
draw His arched brows, his hawking
eye, his curls, In our heart’s table; heart too
capable Of every line and trick of his
sweet favour: But now he’s gone, and my
idolatrous fancy Must sanctify his reliques.4
(1.1.47-60)

When telling the King of
France that her medicine will produce a quick cure,
Helena again uses light imagery. First, she alludes
to the Greek god Apollo, who becomes the sun as he
drives his chariot across the sky. Then she refers
to Hesperus (the planet Venus, which was thought to
be an evening star).

Prose is the
language of everyday conversation. Sentences may
be short or long, and there is no intended rhyme.Unrhymed verse contains a
metric pattern (that is, a pattern of stressed and
unstressed syllables) and a limited number of
syllables per line. Shakespeare generally wrote
his unrhymed verse in iambic
pentameter, meaning that most lines (except
those containing short answers, such as yes
or no) contain five pairs of syllables,
for a total of ten syllables. Each pair of
syllables contains an unstressed syllable followed
by a stressed syllable. For more information about
metric patterns and iambic pentameter, click here. Rhymed verse is like
unrhymed verse except that a syllable (or
syllables) at the end of each line rhymes with a
syllable (or syllables) at the end of another
line.Poetry in Shakespeare
contains a metric pattern and a rhyming pattern
but is not part of a conversation.

Following are examples of each
writing format.

Prose Passage
(3.6.6-11)

BERTRAM: Do
you think I am so far deceived in him? FIRST LORD: Believe it,
my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without
any malice, but to speak of him as my kinsman,
he’s a most notable coward, an infinite and
endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the
owner of no one good quality worthy your
lordship’s entertainment. SECOND LORD: It were fit
you knew him; lest, reposing too far in his
virtue, which he hath not, he might at some
great and trusty business in a main danger fail
you. BERTRAM: I would I knew
in what particular action to try him. SECOND LORD: None better
than to let him fetch off his drum, which you
hear him so confidently undertake to do. FIRST LORD: I, with a
troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise
him: such I will have whom I am sure he knows
not from the enemy. We will bind and hoodwink
him so, that he shall suppose no other but that
he is carried into the leaguer of the
adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents.
Be but your lordship present at his examination:
if he do not, for the promise of his life and in
the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to
betray you and deliver all the intelligence in
his power against you, and that with the divine
forfeit of his soul upon oath, never trust my
judgment in anything.

Verse Passage Without
Rhyme (1.2.29-58)

KING: Youth,
thou bear’st thy father’s face; Frank nature, rather curious
than in haste, Hath well compos’d thee. Thy
father’s moral parts Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome
to Paris. BERTRAM: My thanks and
duty are your majesty’s. KING: I would I had that
corporal soundness now, As when thy father and myself
in friendship First tried our soldiership! He
did look farInto the service of the time
and was Discipled of the bravest: he
lasted long; But on us both did haggish age
steal on, And wore us out of act. It much
repairs me To talk of your good father. In
his youth He had the wit which I can well
observe To-day in our young lords; but
they may jest Till their own scorn return to
them unnoted Ere they can hide their levity
in honour. So like a courtier, contempt
nor bitterness Were in his pride or sharpness;
if they were, His equal had awak’d them; and
his honour, Clock to itself, knew the true
minute when Exception bid him speak, and at
this time His tongue obey’d his hand: who
were below him He us’d as creatures of another
place, And bow’d his eminent top to
their low ranks, Making them proud of his
humility, In their poor praise he
humbled. Such a man Might be a copy to these
younger times, Which, follow’d well, would
demonstrate them now But goers backward.

Verse Passage With Rhyme
(2.1.179-186)

KING:
Methinks in thee some blessed spirit doth speak, His powerful sound within an
organ weak; And what impossibility would slayIn common sense, sense saves
another way. Thy life is dear; for all that
life can rateWorth name of life in thee hath
estimate; Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage,
virtue, allThat happiness and prime can
happy call

Poetry (Recited by the
Clown Beginning at Line 29 of 1.3)

Was this fair face
the cause, quoth she,Why the Grecians sacked Troy?Fond done, done fond,Was this King Priam’s joy?With that she sighed as she
stood,With that she sighed as she
stood,And gave this sentence then;Among nine bad if one be good,Among nine bad if one be good,There’s yet one good in ten.

Shakespeare
used prose to do the following:

One:
Express ordinary, undistinguished observations
coming from the surface of the mind rather than
its active, ruminating interior.Two:
Make quick, one-line replies such as “Ay, my
lord” that are the stuff of day-to-day
conversations.Three:
Present auditory relief for audiences (or visual
relief for readers) from the intellectual and
connotative density of the verse passages.Four:
Suggest madness or senility. In King Lear,
Lear speaks almost exclusively in verse in the
first half of the play. Then suddenly, he
lurches back and forth between verse and prose,
perhaps to suggest the frenzied state of his
aging mind. Hamlet sometimes shifts to prose in
front of observers, perhaps in hopes of
presenting his feigned madness as real.Five:
Depict the rambling, desultory path of
conversation from a tongue loosened by alcohol,
as in Henry IV Part I and Henry IV
Part II.Six:
Poke fun at characters who lack the wit to
versify their lines.Seven:
Demonstrate that prose has merits as a literary
medium. In Shakespeare’s day, verse (and its
elegant cousin, poetry) was the sine qua non of
successful writing. As an innovator, Shakespeare
may have wanted to tout the merits of prose.
Thus, on occasion, he infused his plays with
prose passages so graceful and thought-provoking
that they equalled, and sometimes even
surpassed, the majesty of verse or poetry
passages. Such a prose passage is the following,
spoken by Hamlet in Act II, Scene II:What a
piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how
infinite in faculty! in form and moving how
express and admirable! in action how like an
angel! in apprehension how like a god! the
beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And
yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?
man delights not me: no, nor woman neither,
though by your smiling you seem to say so.

Shakespeare
used verse to do the following:

One:
Express deep emotion requiring elevated
language. Because nobles and commoners were both
capable of experiencing profound emotion, both
expressed their emotions in verse from time to
time.Two:
Make wise, penetrating, and reflective
observations that require lofty language. Such a
passage is a famous one recited by the outlaw
Jaques in Act II, Scene VII, of As You Like
It. The passage–which begins with the
often-quoted line “All the world’s a
stage”–philosophizes about the “seven ages” of
man, from infancy to senility. Three:
Present a lyrical poem as a separate entity,
like the famous song in Act V, Scene III, of As
You Like It. The first stanza of that poem
follows:

It was a lover and his lass,With
a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,That
o’er the green corn-field did passIn
the spring time, the only pretty ring time,When
birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding:Sweet
lovers love the spring.

Four:
Inject irony. When the highborn speak humble
prose and the hoi polloi speak elegant verse, as
is sometimes the case in The Merchant of
Venice, Shakespeare may be saying up can
be down, and down can be up. In The Merchant,
the noble characters are just as reprehensible
as–or perhaps even more reprehensible than–the
workaday, unsophisticated characters. Portia is
often depicted in critical analyses of the play
as its noblest character. But a close reading of
the play reveals her as a racist and a
self-seeking conniver. Thus, Shakespeare makes
her tongue wag in prose and verse, revealing her
Janus personality.Five:
Suggest order and exactitude. A character who
speaks in precise rhythms and patterns is a
character with a tidy brain that plans ahead and
executes actions on schedule.

Following are examples of
figures of speech in All's Well That Ends Well.
For definitions of figures of speech, see Literary Terms.

Anaphora

There shall your
master have a thousand loves, A
mother, and a
mistress, and a
friend, A
phœnix, captain, and an enemy, A
guide, a
goddess, and a
sovereign, A
counsellor, a
traitress, and a
dear; His
humble ambition, proud humility, His
jarring concord, and his
discord dulcet, His
faith, his
sweet disaster; with a world Of pretty, fond, adoptious
christendoms, (1.1.85-93)

He lost a wife Whose
beauty did astonish the survey Of richest eyes, whose words all
ears took captive, Whose
dear perfection hearts that scorn’d to
serve Humbly call’d mistress.
(5.3.20-24)

Alliteration

The congregated college have concluded That labouring art can never
ransom nature (2.1.119-120)

Find
fairer fortune (2.3.81)

Where
death and danger dog the heels of
worth
(3.4.17)

[W]hat impossibility would slay In common sense, sense saves another way.
(2.1.181-182)

Metaphor

He wears his honour
in a box, unseen (2.3.219)Comparison of honour to attire

[W]hen you have our roses, You barely leave our thorns to
prick ourselves And mock us with our bareness.
(4.2.25-27)Diana compares herself to a
rosebush.

My chastity’s the jewel of
our house, (4.2.57)Comparison of chastity to a
jewel

LAFEU ’Twas a
good lady, ’twas a good lady: we may pick a
thousand salads ere we light on such another
herb. CLOWN Indeed, sir,
she was the sweet-marjoram of the salad, or,
rather the herb of grace.Comparison of a woman to
food

A scar nobly got, or a
noble scar, is a good livery of honour. (4.4.38)Comparison of scar to a
uniform (livery)

I am not a day of
season, For thou mayst see a sunshine
and a hail In me at once; but to the
brightest beams Distracted clouds give way: so
stand thou forth; The time is fair again.
(5.3.41-45)The king compares himself to
rapidly changing weather.

Paradox

O strange men! That can such sweet use make of
what they hate. (4.4.25-26)

Personification

[D]isgraces have of
late knocked too often at my door (4.1.11)Comparison of disgraces to
visitors entreating entry at a door

Epigrams.In the dialogue of All's
Well That Ends Well and other Shakespeare
plays, characters sometimes speak wise or witty
sayings couched in memorable figurative language.
Although these sayings are brief, they often express
a profound universal truth or make a
thought-provoking observation. Such sayings are
called epigrams or aphorisms. Because many of
Shakespeare’s epigrams are so memorable, writers and
speakers use them again and again. Many of
Shakespeare's epigrams have become part of our
everyday language; often we use them without
realizing that it was Shakespeare who coined them.
Examples of phrases Shakespeare originated in his
plays include “all’s well that ends well,” “[every]
dog will have its day,” “give the devil his due,”
“green-eyed monster,” “my own flesh and blood,”
“neither rhyme nor reason,” “one fell swoop,”
“primrose path,” “spotless reputation,” and “too
much of a good thing.”Among the more memorable
sayings in All's Well That Ends Well are the
following:

Moderate lamentation
is the right of the dead, excessive grief the
enemy to the living. (1. 2. 20) Lafeu addresses Helena on her
expressions of grief.

Oft expectation fails, and
most oft there Where most it promises. . . (1.
2. 144-145).Helena, using a paradox,
addresses the King of France on failed cures
for his fistula.

A young man married is a
man that’s marr’d. (2. 3. 238) Using alliteration, Parolles
addresses Bertram after Bertram’s wedding.

The web of our life is a
mingled yarn, good and ill together. . . (4. 3.
29). The First Lord addresses the
Second Lord on Bertram’s changing fortunes. A
metaphor compares life to a web of mingled
yard.

Time will bring on summer, When briers shall have leaves
as well as thorns, And be as sweet as sharp.
(4.4.37-39)Helena makes this
observation when speaking to Diana.

Strong
Women

Helena and the Countess ofRousillon
are both strong women. Helena is courageous and
persistent; she is also highly intelligent, the
proof of which is her mastery of the medical
arts. When Bertram takes no notice of her and
goes off to Paris, she pines for a while, then
acts decisively, traveling to Paris herself.
There the king suffers from an apparently
incurable fistula. When Helena claims that she
can cure him, the king allows her to treat him
under penalty of death if she fails. With the
king's promise that if she succeeds she may
choose a future husband from among the men at
court, she proceeds and heals the king. She
chooses Bertram, of course, and the king orders
him to marry her.
When Bertram abandons her after their wedding,
she is broken-hearted. But thanks to a little
luck and help from other women, she wins Bertram
back. The countess, well aware of Helena’s
excellent qualities, encourages Helena in her
pursuit of her spoiled son, perhaps in the
realization that Helena can help Bertram to
mature. Her support of Helena underscores her
strength of character. In an age when other
mothers of high social standing attempted to
make a match for their sons based on pedigree,
the countess has the courage to endorse a woman
of the lower class as a possible future
daughter-in-law. It is interesting to note that
the countess acts in a fatherly role in advising
Bertram on the ways of the world. She gives
Bertram a short farewell “lecture” reminiscent
of the lecture Polonius gives to Laertes (in
Hamlet: 1. 3. 66-88) before Laertes leaves home.
Following is the advice the countess
gives:

Be thou blest,
Bertram; and succeed thy fatherIn manners, as in shape! thy
blood and virtue Contend for empire in thee; and
thy goodness Share with thy birthright! Love
all, trust a few, Do wrong to none: be able for
thine enemyRather in power than use, and
keep thy friend Under thy own life’s key: be
check’d for silence, But never tax’d for speech. What
heaven more will That thee may furnish, and my
prayers pluck down,Fall on thy head! Farewell, my
lord; ’Tis an unseason’d courtier; good
my lord, Advise him. (1.1.24-35)

Parolles
Learns a Lesson

French lords expose Parolles
as a coward by ambushing and capturing him, then
making him think he is in the custody of the
enemy. He learns a lesson, which serves as a kind
of moral that he presents to the audience:

Yet am I thankful:
if my heart were great ’Twould burst at this. Captain
I’ll be no more; But I will eat and drink, and
sleep as soft 140As captain shall: simply the
thing I am Shall make me live. Who knows
himself a braggart, Let him fear this; for it will
come to pass That every braggart shall be
found an ass. 144Rust, sword! cool, blushes! and
Parolles, liveSafest in shame! being fool’d, by
foolery thrive! There’s place and means for every
man alive. (4.3.138-147)

Study
Questions and Essay Topics

In the age of Shakespeare,
it was not uncommon for a young man of high
social standing to reject a woman because of her
low social standing—and
vice versa. How important is social status to
marriageable young men and women in today’s
society?

Write an informative essay
about the status of women in England or France
in Shakespeare’s time.

Which character in the
play do you most admire? Which do you least
admire?

Write a psychological
profile of Bertram or Helena, focusing on
salient characteristics.

Was Helena’s method of
ensnaring Bertram—the
bedroom trick in which she pretends to be Diana—moral?

Bertram and Helena are
reconciled at the end. Will their marriage
last?

Notes

1...canary:
Popular dance in the courts of Spain and France in the
Sixteenth Century.2...Pepin:
Pepin the Short (714?-768), King of the Franks from
751 to 768.3...Charlemain:
Charlemagne (742-814), King of the Franks from 768 to
814. He was crowned emperor of the Holy Roman Empire
in 800. 4...reliques:
Variant spelling of relics (keepsakes or any other
objects from the past).5...torcher:
Reference to Apollo as the bearer of light (the sun).6...diurnal:
Occurring daily.7...ring:
The round-the-world trip the sun makes.8...Hesperus:
Evening star..